An ethical question Re: LT & Book Mooch

I have a LOT of books that I'm looking to find homes for.

I have a few particular titles that I'm looking for.

I belong to several 'special interest' Groups here on LT.

How appropriate would it be to advertise one's 'want' lists and one's 'now available on Book Mooch' lists in the relevant LT Groups?

It strikes me as inappropriate, shifting the tone from 'talking about books' toward more blatant commercialism.

On the other hand, would it be a good thing to announce, "Hey, if you're looking for titles like (this special interest), I just listed a bunch of them on Book Mooch for swapping"?

It seems like a minor ethical conundrum, and I'd be interested in what other people think.

If the books have to do with what the group is about I don't think I'd have a problem with that. If you want to keep it unobtrusive, you can always start a new topic/thread on the group page (and maybe others can add their own available titles). Not sure if I think you should post the titles or only link to bm.

Good luck :-)

Good question. I'd like to know when someone has books related to the discussion at hand, but on the other hand, especially with new members joining all the time, it could get overwhelming.

Perhaps you could put (a) note(s) on your profile? I don't know about everyone else, but I tend to check out the libraries of most of the people who post regularly in the groups I belong to.

It sounds good to me, Bob!

:-))

I think it's okay, so long as you're up-front, relevant and it's Bookmooch. Actually SELLING books on LibraryThing is not allowed. (Although, again, if you really had something special and a group that was perfect for it, mentioning it wouldn't be bad, so long as you didn't "mention" a new book every day.)

That feels about right.

I just worry about attracting undesirables: there's a line out there somewhere between "There's a book available that somebody here might want" on the one hand, and outright spam on the other, and I would not want to see it crossed.

I was ambivalent about LT adding the book-swap features, but I guess as long as it's used as A Force For Good....

Book swapping is benign, I think. If BM ever went evil, someone would spring up in its place. (Heck, we would. Certainly our incentive for starting a swap service--which we considered--was much reduced by the arrival of BookMooch, who are doing it right.) The trick is, can John figure out how to make money on it?

Whether he can or not, he's certainly earned a backlog of good will. Personally, I'm happy to see relevant books mentioned when available. In fact, I did mention a particularly nice BM stash in an LT group, once - partly because it wasn't mine. I had relevant books on offer as well, but like Bob, felt uncertain about mentioning them. The other guy simply had things too good to pass up. :)